Analogue switch off - 1 year on

Scaramanga 4

I think there is a disgraceful lack of choice for people who only have saorview because you still have kids shows on RTE 2 and everyting live on rte newsnow is simulcast on RTE 1.

Peter Rhea

Well, sure delete everything apart from the 4 main channels & pretend the switchover never happened.

Also, pretend that RTE2 isn't HD, or the other channels when they go HD.

watty

The ASO was ONLY about replacing Analogue with Digital so the Government could make money selling off part of the TV Spectrum to Mobile Operators. Successive Governments have been dreaming of that one off revenue shot for a decade. They call it the "Digital Dividend". Despite the Propaganda written for Sinn Fein called the "MOU" and nonsense from BCI/BAI and Government it was always about raising revenue from spectrum sale to Mobile and never about More Channels or getting BBC.

The fact that on Terrestrial we got

• Better coverage
• Widescreen
• Some HD

is a bonus.

We did even get the RTE News now (mildly useful) and 3e (almost pointless). The RTEjr / RTE+ channel may be advantageous compared to Kids programmes on RTE2 in the daytime. But with RTE it's hard to say.

Saorsat (really only existing as a method of backup feed for 2RN) is also a "free" unexpected bonus. Shame on Government and BAI for not making use of it mandatory for anyone on Saorview. It's peanuts compared to Freesat costs for UK broadcasters.

If you get 4 x set boxes and set them to 4:3 and four PAL modulators or VHS machines you can pretend it never happened.

The ASAI and Quango Consumer crowd were useless as was lack of Government legislation and BCI/BAI induced delays, also bad was TV3's attitude. So many people ended buying incompatible TVs over the last 3 years when there should ONLY have been compatible models in the shops since September 2010.

RTE NL now 2RN achieved better than expected with ZERO Government funding despite the money the Government gets from the ASO.

We might even get RTE 1 part time in HD. Maybe Oireachtas TV next year. Eventually TG4 in HD. I'd not hold my breath for HD TV3 unless they think it would bring in more adverts profit than the approximately x3 transmission costs.
Broadcasting is now cheaper per station.

So nothing to complain about.

If you want free Foreign TV, get Freesat. If you want pay TV, (82% have it, though a natural figure would be 60% max) get UPC or Sky. Or maybe even Eircom in some areas soon (let others be guinea pigs though!).

So?

winston_1

watty wrote: »

If you get 4 x set boxes and set them to 4:3 and four PAL modulators or VHS machines you can pretend it never happened.

Not quite. No teletext. It would be possible to extract teletext from the satellite feed and gate it in to the Saorview feed I suppose.

watty

Why would the OP want Teletext

winston_1

watty wrote: »

Why would the OP want Teletext

If he wants to pretend ASO never happened he needs teletext as it was immediately preceding ASO.

Sam Russell

Analogue switch off was a non-event. The switch on of DTT happened FIVE YEARS AGO. in August 2008 when RTE took over the BT experiment/trial or whatever it was.

The official launch of DTT was in May 2011, 28-plus months ago. All that happened a year ago was that the legacy system was eventually switched off. The MW transmitter for Athlone was trurned off and few noticed. The only reason the ASO was noteworthy was because of the totally ineffective change-over advertising campaign by RTE and the other lot responsible.

Antenna

Sam Russell wrote: »

Analogue switch off was a non-event. The switch on of DTT happened FIVE YEARS AGO. in August 2008 when RTE took over the BT experiment/trial or whatever it was.

The official launch of DTT was in May 2011, 28-plus months ago. All that happened a year ago was that the legacy system was eventually switched off. The MW transmitter for Athlone was trurned off and few noticed. The only reason the ASO was noteworthy was because of the totally ineffective change-over advertising campaign by RTE and the other lot responsible.

its non-sensical to describe it as a non-event, few here would agree with you.
I'd suggest around two-thirds of terrestrial viewers in the country were still using the analogue reception for at least one TV in their homes up to 'ASO' date (even though their main TV in most cases was by that time receiving Saorview).
Maybe installers who post here could give their own estimates as to what percentage of homes still used analogue for at least one TV up to 'ASO' date?

watty

Sam Russell wrote: »

The MW transmitter for Athlone was trurned off and few noticed.

No, it was done quietly and complaints ignored. MW was turned of in stages and RTE R1 MW later than "2FM" also only after 252 LW had changed to R1.

Nothing to do with ASO, DSO or DAB. Purely a cost cutting measure. Without R1 on LW they could not have justified it (2FM isn't justifiable at all as an RTE station, so turning it off on MW was irrelevant).

ASO certainly wasn't a non-event.

The Cush

Sam Russell wrote: »

Analogue switch off was a non-event. The switch on of DTT happened FIVE YEARS AGO. in August 2008 when RTE took over the BT experiment/trial or whatever it was.

I think RTÉNL would disagree with you, I'd say their ESB bill dropped considerably on Oct 24th last. As regards Aug 2008 that was only the start of the engineering test transmissions, around this part of the country they didn't start until Mar/Apr 2009.

Scaramanga 4

Anyways my point in the op was that compared to other countries there is very narrow choice on dtt here, take weekday mornings, You have Morning Edition on RTE 1 and RTE NN, RTE Jr on RTe two as well as its own channel. The BBC for example removed kids shows from BBC 1 and 2 shortly after aso.

watty

Compared with which other Countries of similar size and a 20 x larger neighbour of same language, broadcasting to them FTA on Satellite?

USA, France, UK, Netherlands, Germany are not valid countries to compare with. Even UK, Pay DTT is a failure.

Perhaps Portugal might be a better point of comparison?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television_in_Portugal

Israel DTT, ASO was 2 years ago:
Israel currently offers 6 SD TV channels and 30 national and regional (private) radio services.
They don't exactly have a large neighbour with loads of Interesting Hebrew channels.

Technically we have 8 TV (or 7 or 6 if you are awkward) channels, and a 9th due (Oireachtas).

The number of countries where pay DTT is/was a failure or never attempted is very large. Any more than the channels we have would have to be pay DTT. That can't compete with UPC & Sky (already 82%) or Freesat.
Also "more" isn't better. UK TV is poorer quality now than in 1983 due to fragmentation. (C4 started November 1982 I think. C5 was nearly pointless, the market already saturated). Sky 1 has less than 1.5% viewing time.

Sam Russell

My point about ASO being a non-event was to point out the failure of the advertising of the existence of DTT. A simple message on screen for those receiving analogue would have been cheap and effective. Having Tommy and his mate on Sky was pointless. If the message had been effective, then viewers would have changed over early in the eighteen month lead in period instead of in the last week. The fact that the benefits were huge, and the costs had to be bourne in the long run anyway, was lost on the population because Tommy and his mate were totally ineffective.

Worse was the fact that everyone involved in the switch over had to swear not to mention Freesat under pain of a fate worse than a transfer to another, lesser watched, station.

Antenna

Sam Russell wrote: »

Worse was the fact that everyone involved in the switch over had to swear not to mention Freesat under pain of a fate worse than a transfer to another, lesser watched, station.

There is no such thing as a Freesat receiver that is combo and could also receive Saorview.

BTW The sale of Freesat receivers in the republic, whilst not illegal, is considered 'Grey-market', you have to pretend you are in the UK (postcode) in installing them etc

watty

82% use Sky & UPC. The Adverts were on Terrestrial Analogue too.
I agree Tommy & Thingy was a stupid campaign. The biggest issue IMO was lack of retail regulation. Not the TV campaign.

Freesat is in a sense irrelevant to ASO as it is as substitute for much of what is paid for on Sky & UPC (which were unaffected by ASO) and no Freesat channel has or ever had RTE1, RTE2, TV3 and TG4.

DSO was NOT about reducing Sky or UPC dominance in the Market place. That would have been illegal. Italian Government was fined for that. Actually any official promotion of Freesat in connection with ASO would have been illegal and immediately challenged as unfair by UPC and Sky. They would have won too.

Independent Irish Installers and Retail are quite legally able to promote Freesat in Ireland. UK suppliers and Broadcasters would be in breach of civil contracts to do so. The UK Government or Irish Government would be in breach of EU competition & subsidies law to spend money promoting Freesat in Ireland at ANY time.

The ONLY permissible advertising to do with ASO for RTE or the Government was to promote Saorview as the replacement for Irish Analogue Terrestrial TV. Which indeed is all it is.

Sam Russell

I still maintain that ASO was a non-event. If RTE had used the analogue signal to inform those who watched analogue that their signal was about to disappear, by for example reducing its size, then any other promotion would have been totally redundant.

Mrs. Murphy: " My TV is on the blink, the picture has shrunk."
TV repair man: " No it's not your TV, the analogue service is being replaced by a better, digital signal with better picture and a few extra channels."
Mrs. Murphy: " When is that happenning?"
TV repair man: "It has aleady happened, you just need this little box and you are sorted."
Mrs. Murphy: "Great, go ahead and fit it so."
Later - Mrs. Murphy:"Wow, what a fantastic picture! It is so clear!"

Instead we got a daft advertising promotion advertising a product no-one understood. Mind you, RTE are in the advertising business and so saw advertising as an obvious soltution to any problem.

Reminds me of the story that the US/Nasa spent a fortune developing a high-tech ball-point pen that would work in the zero gravity of space while the Russians used a pencil.

Macy0161

Scaramanga 4 wrote: »

Anyways my point in the op was that compared to other countries there is very narrow choice on dtt here, take weekday mornings, You have Morning Edition on RTE 1 and RTE NN, RTE Jr on RTe two as well as its own channel. The BBC for example removed kids shows from BBC 1 and 2 shortly after aso.

Saorview is hamstrung by decisions of the bai/ the last FF government. They danced to the sky and tv3 tune and blocked the move of children's programming from RTE2, blocked advertising from news now (the consequence of which has meant simulcasts and no new programming), and left us with RTE1+1 instead of an additional channel.

Commercial interests, not even Irish based, were allowed to dictate saorview. Carey signed it into being after the election, so it was a final snub to democracy by FF!

Peter Rhea

The man with the golden gun didn't even hang around to argue his case . . .

SPDUB

Sam Russell wrote: »

I still maintain that ASO was a non-event. If RTE had used the analogue signal to inform those who watched analogue that their signal was about to disappear, by for example reducing its size, then any other promotion would have been totally redundant.

They still would have had to mention ASO as all the above would have achieved is people thinking there was something wrong with their TV and anyway is it even legal to degrade the quality of a signal other than for engineering tests

Reminds me of the story that the US/Nasa spent a fortune developing a high-tech ball-point pen that would work in the zero gravity of space while the Russians used a pencil.

Pity that story is complete and utter bollocks

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen

H.J Simpson

Rte junior and saorview itself were launched about 7 times in 2 years.

Sam Russell

SPDUB wrote: »

Pity that story is complete and utter bollocks

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen

... but it is a good one.:D

Sam Russell

SPDUB wrote: »

They still would have had to mention ASO as all the above would have achieved is people thinking there was something wrong with their TV and anyway is it even legal to degrade the quality of a signal other than for engineering tests

Once Saorview was launched, Saorview was the signal. Analogue was just a legacy signal, and was superceded and so was no longer the 'signal'. Also, they would not be degrading it, merely allowing space for a measage to be added to the signal to announce that the new signal was available and should be used. A simmilar device was used in NI to signal the changeover.

It makes more sense to me to have the actual signal being watched to carry the message that the station is closing down, not Tommy and his mate in paid-for advertising making oblique points.

Antenna

Sam Russell wrote: »

I still maintain that ASO was a non-event. If RTE had used the analogue signal to inform those who watched analogue that their signal was about to disappear, by for example reducing its size, then any other promotion would have been totally redundant.


.

We have been through this before.

Amongst other reasons read again the points I made in a long thread last year

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=81128958